Wrap-around article carriers are commonly designed to have ends which are either partially or entirely open. In either case the carriers must be provided with means for preventing the articles from falling out the ends. Beverage cans, for example, are held in place partly by the tension of the tightly wrapped carrier and by engagement of the top and bottom flanges of the cans with the edges of cutouts in the side panels of the carrier through which the flanges of the cans extend. This design is facilitated by the fact that cans have substantially flat tops and bottoms of the same diameter as the body of the can, which allows the carrier blank to be tightly wrapped around the cans.
Problems arise when the articles are not of uniform dimensions, and particularly when the articles are tapered toward the bottom to cause the bottom portions of articles in adjacent rows to be spaced apart. Wrap-around carriers for use with tapered tubs of the type used as soft food containers are especially troublesome because of the difficulty in wrapping them tightly enough to prevent movement of the tubs when the package is lifted and carried. Movement of the containers is a problem even when the carrier includes side slots through which flanges on the tops of the tubs protrude, since such an arrangement does not hold the bottom portions of the tubs tightly in place.
Partial end panels extending up from the bottom panel could be provided to function as article retainers, as could corner end gusset panels or flaps. These measures are not entirely satisfactory, however, because they require extra material to be used, making the carrier more costly to produce, and do not prevent movement of the bottom portions of the containers toward and away from each other. To overcome these problems it has been suggested to provide retaining flaps which are wedged between the bottom portions of adjacent tubs to hold them in place. Although this prevents the spaced bottom portions of articles from moving with respect to each other and toward the open end of the carrier, it requires additional operating steps to activate the flaps. Also, the space taken up by the retaining flaps limits the design of the mechanical locking means employed to secure the bottom panel flaps of the carrier. Such limitations can lead to a greater possibility of the bottom panel flap locking means failing. It would therefore be desirable to provide article retaining means which do not interfere with the operation of bottom panel mechanical locking means and which are not at risk of being moved out of operative condition.